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Captain Langley Vandor
In the short story The Renegade, Captain Langley Vandor was the renegade in question. He was a British planter in Malaya who supplied bandits operating in the jungles with weapons and ammunition. Vandor's grandfather was a merchant navy captain, described by Air Commodore Raymond as a good type of the old school. After he retired from the sea, he married a Eurasian girl in Singapore and then became a planter and made a fortune during the rubber boom. He built a large estate in a place called Marapang, in a remote location in the northeast corner of the Malayan peninsula. The couple had a son who inherited the estate when his parents died. He married an Irish girl and Langley Vandor was their son. Langley did not, however, follow the promising start his parents and grandparents established. Sent to school in England, Langley got himself expelled for theft. His father ordered him home but instead, he drifted to the Port of London and got involved in various crimes including the smuggling of opium. He was also believed to have stabbed and killed a Chinese sailor. When Langley was twenty one, his father died from a snakebite amid local rumours that Langley had paid a Malay seaman to put a cobra in his father's bed. Langley inherited the Marapang estate and returned there to manage it, turning it into his personal domain and making it clear that British visitors were not welcome. It must have been around this time that Langley took on the self-appointed title of "Captain". Langley learned to fly at the flying club in Kuala Lumpur, bought himself a light plane and laid down a small airstrip at Marapang. He flew down to Singapore on occasional visits but found himself ostracised by the European community, something which probably embittered him and drove him even further into the path he would take. Langley was believed to have collaborated with the Japanese during their occupation of Malaya in the Second World War. At the end of the war, he offered money to the locals to bring him all the ammunition and weapons left behind by the Japanese. With these he built up a large cache which he stored at Marapang. During the Malayan Emergency (beginning in 1949) in which the short story is probably set, Langley helped the communist guerillas operating in the Malayan jungles who were fighting British troops, supplying them with arms and ammunition. When the British authorities learnt about this, Biggles was sent in to blow up Langley's arms cache. Biggles first met Langley after he parachuted into Marapang and was reconnoitering the estate. Some communist bandits had brought a captured British soldier, Alan MacDonald to Langley for questioning. When MacDonald pleaded that private soldiers did not know any details of operations, Langley beat him and might have shot him. Fortunately Biggles intervened at this point and took Langley prisoner. Leaving MacDonald to guard Langley, Biggles proceeded to blow up the arms cache. As Biggles and MacDonald were making their escape, MacDonald asked for a pause. MacDonald then backtracked a little so that he could take a shot at the leader of the bandits who was standing with Langley. MacDonald shot the bandit leader as an act of revenge for killing his friend. He also took a few shots at Langley who appeared to dive into the ground. The text does not make clear if Langley had been hit or not. Langley's ultimate fate is not known. As Air Commodore Raymond had told Biggles, destroying the arms cache was more important than dealing with Langley. During the hurried egress from Marapang, hotly pursued by bandits, Biggles probably didn't stop to verify what happened to him. Category:People Category:Biggles characters Category:Air Police era characters